Ilene+Eagen


 * SUMMARY: On March 24, 1947, 24-year-old Ilene Eagen died from an abortion perpetrated in Mankato, MN, by dentist W. A. Groebner.**

On March 21, 1947, divorcee Ilene Lorraine Eagen, age 24, was brought from her home in Granada, Minnesota to Mankato, Minnesota, to the dental office of W. A. Groebner, age 25, for an abortion.

Court records indicate that Ilene was pressured into the abortion by her paramour, Raymond Older, who refused to marry her and threatened her with bodily harm if she refused an abortion.

After the abortion, Ilene became violently ill and lost consciousness. Groebner and Older failed to seek or provide properly care for the sick woman. Instead, Older took Ilene to his service station in Granada, Minnesota and kept her there through the remainder of the night, into the morning of March 22. Older allowed Ilene to languish without medical care.

Ilene was finally taken to a hospital in Fairmont, Minnesota.She died there on March 24, leaving a seven-year-old daughter motherless.

Older tried to escape civil liability on the grounds that despite his refusal to marry her, and the threats, Ilene had consented to the abortion and that therefore she was responsible for her own sickness and subsequent death.

Groebner plea bargained and got a suspended sentence of four years provided he abstain from alcohol, avoid places where alcohol was sold, and not practice dentistry until authorized by the courts to do so.

During the 1940s, while abortion was still illegal, there was a massive drop in maternal mortality from abortion. The death toll fell from 1,407 in 1940, to 744 in 1945, to 263 in 1950. Most researches attribute this plunge to the development of blood transfusion techniques and the introduction of antibiotics. Learn more [|here].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * 227 Minn. 154, 34 N.W.2d 700; Supreme Court of Minnesota. True v. Older et al.No. 34682.Nov. 19, 1948. Action by Helen J. True, special administratix of the estate of Ilene Eagen, deceased, against Raymond Older and another for wrongful death
 * "Abortionist Gets Suspended Sentence," //Huron (SD) Daily Plainsman//, May 25, 1947
 * "Pleads Guilty to Abortion Charge," //Algonal Upper Des Moines//, July 5, 1947

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